In recent years, a silicon carbide substrate has begun to be adopted for manufacturing of a semiconductor device. Silicon carbide has a wider band gap than that of silicon. Hence, a semiconductor device using a silicon carbide substrate has advantages such as a high breakdown voltage, a low on-resistance and a less deteriorated property under a high temperature condition.
A silicon carbide single crystal can be manufactured by a sublimation-recrystallization method, for example. For example, Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2007-284306 (Patent Document 1) describes a method of manufacturing a silicon carbide single crystal with a specific surface area of a source material silicon carbide powder being set to be not less than 0.001 m2/g and not more than 0.05 m2/g. Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2009-234802 (Patent Document 2) describes a method of manufacturing a silicon carbide single crystal by performing a pretreatment to maintain, for a predetermined time, a crucible under a reduced-pressure atmosphere at a temperature equal to or more than a temperature at which the silicon carbide source material does not sublime and then sublimating the silicon carbide source material under an inert gas atmosphere.